There are two primary normal attack buttons in BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, and . A attacks are primarily weak but fast, while B attacks are stronger but slower. Everyone's is a sweep that will knock opponents down on hit.

Normal attacks can usually cancel into one another, generally following the order > > . However, this is not a steadfast rule. Consult the Revolver Action section of your character's frame data for exact details.

Under Night In-Birth characters are capable of canceling almost any normal into any other normal once per string as an homage to their game series mechanic Passing Link, commonly referred to as Reverse Beat in reference to its predecessor, Melty Blood.

By repeatedly pressing or while standing, you will perform a Smart Combo. Subsequent inputs of the same button will result in normal attacks that are unique, analogous to the follow-up attacks that Nu's normals or Tsubaki's and normals have in BlazBlue or the and normals unique to Auto Combos in Persona 4: Arena. These attacks cannot be performed individually. All characters also have a Smart Combo and some also have a Smart Combo. These are often but not always unique.

Note that BlazBlue characters have a unique normal that will not initiate the Smart Combo but can be canceled into on hit or block to initiate it that way, and Persona 4: Arena characters (as well as Tager, Mai, Nine and Linne) excluding Mitsuru have a unique normal that initiates a different Smart Combo by holding as you continue to press . Nu and Weiss also have a that continues into the same Smart Combo as by holding as you press the second time or cancels directly into by releasing as you press the second time.

By pressing while standing, your character will perform a Clash Assault. A Clash Assault is a universal overhead that has a special follow-up sequence on ground hit where your two characters will perform a combination attack on the opponent. The entire sequence does a good amount of damage on its own and is one of the few options available to all characters to break an opponent's guard so it can be useful. However, most Clash Assaults also send the opponent a fullscreen away, resetting the situation back to neutral.

Press right when "Crash!" appears for bonus damage

When the Clash Assault animation occurs, a notification will appear with "Crash!", indicating that you can input again for bonus damage and Skill Gauge gain. The indication of timing can be given with "Good!", "Excellent!!", and "Marvelous!!" which increases the damage done with Clash Assault. A helpful visual cue is to press right as the opponent begins to fall.

Note: If your partner has died or is already on screen due to an existing partner action, your partner will not join you for the follow-up sequence, resulting in decreased damage.

Skills are usually performed by doing a motion plus a button (such as ) and typically have special properties compared to normal attacks. Skills have properties that may vary depending on which attack button was used. Each character has unique skills, check out each character's wiki page to learn more about how to use them.

In addition to normal skills, characters also have powered-up skills called Extra Skills that are performed by doing a motion plus the C Button (such as ). Many of these Extra Skills are variations of the skill attached to the same motion, but there are also Extra Skills that are their own unique special move. Extra Skills cost 1 Skill Gauge and create a light blue silhouette behind the character. Damage dealt by an Extra Skill does not convert to recoverable life. These can be very powerful and useful for turning the tides of a match so be sure to consult your character's overview page to find out what their Extra Skills do and how they can help you in battle.

Press to call out your partner to help you by performing an action. Each partner has 3 different Partner Skills that can be used by inputting , or . Consult your character's overview page to learn what Partner Skills they have and decide how best to use them. Partner Skills ignore hitstun decay on hit. Also, after performing their Partner Skill, your partner will remain on the screen for a bit of time, essentially locking you out from using them again for a small period of time.

Performing a Partner Skill while your character is already in the middle of an action results in an Active Partner Skill, a Partner Skill that costs 50% of the Cross Gauge and can only be used once per combo. As well as extending combos, Active Partner Skills can also be used to cover your character after performing an unsafe action. Be sure to use Active Partner Skills at the most strategic times to make the most of them.

Active Partner Skills can not be used during certain actions, such as during a successful throw animation, Distortion, or ukemi.

By pressing during a Partner Skill, your partner will strike a pose, after which control will switch over to them. Your character will gain a red/blue aura after changing, indicating a temporary boost in Skill Gauge gain and the speed that your Partner heals recoverable health. Active Change does not occur until the button is released, which will help prevent players from doing an accidental Cross Combo or Reversal Action when they intend to do a fast Partner Skill > Active Change.

Changes who is point character on 1F

Active Change immediately cancels attack for the incoming character

Change takes 30F

If the character is airborne, then they are in recovery until landing as well

Since this changes who is point character immediately, you can create left/right mixups with Active Change by sandwiching the opponent between you and your partner. Do an attack with your point character, then immediately Active Change - the opponent now needs to block in the other direction!

By positioning your two characters correctly, you can also make some mixups safe against Reversal Actions by having your point character do a high/low/throw, then immediately Active Change - if the opponent Reversal Actions, then your former point character will get hit, but your new point character is out of range and can punish!

By pressing + during a Partner Skill, you activate a Cross Combo, allowing your partner to remain in-play and use additional Partner Skills. This requires at least 50% of your Cross Gauge and will act as a timer for Cross Combo. Getting hit ends Cross Combo immediately. Cross Combo has startup/recovery of 0+0.

While Cross Combo is active, any attacks you make will cause your partner will execute their Partner Skill corresponding to the direction you are holding; for example, inputting causes your partner to use their ; inputting causes your partner to use their . Partners are fully invincible so long as they are not attacking.

The above makes coordinated team attacks difficult to execute, but there is a simple way around this. Holding down keeps your partner from attacking, and releasing will cause your partner to attack (holding left/right will determine which assist attack is done as usual). Thus you can do a combo with your main character while holding , then release to have your partner hit the opponent to extend the combo. You can also press at any point to do an Active Change and change who the "main" character is during Cross Combo, allowing lots of versatility for creating mixups and combos.

Cross Combo also buffs your team in more subtle ways; during Cross Combo hitstun decay is ignored, damage dealt will be unrecoverable (no red health), and Distortion Skill will be the powered up Resonance version! Do note that using a Distortion immediately ends Cross Combo, though following up with a Distortion Skill Duo will have the other incoming D-Skill be the Resonance version as well in that case.

As if the above wasn't enough, Cross Combos allows you to give just about any attack full invincibility! This is done by doing an attack with your point character, then immediately pressing to Active Change. The former point character's attack will be fully invincible as well as have no collision box, effectively giving you an invincible assist attack!

Distortion Skills are powerful attacks that costs 2 Skill Gauge to use, performed by pressing + or +. Typically, a Distortion Skill is a powerful attack that deals a lot of damage and have Minimum Damage, perfect for ending combos to maximize the damage you'll do to an opponent. Most Distortion Skills have invincible frames on startup.

However, there are a few Distortion Skills that can be used for other purposes. For example, Distortion Skills like Chie's Agneyastra are perfect for limiting an opponent's options so you can close the gap between you and your opponent more easily. Platinum's Miracle Jeanne powers her other attacks up instead of being an attack in itself.

Distortion Skills can normally only be canceled into from normals and throws, but during Resonance Blaze you'll be able to cancel into Distortion Skills from Skills as well.

Press during a Distortion Skill to make your partner come out and follow-up with a Distortion Skill Duo, switching control over to them as you bring them in and doing some additional damage.

Distortion Skill Duo costs 2 Skill Gauges and is only available after the opponent gets hit/blocks your initial Distortion and your partner must be in a usable state (ie: not on cooldown from Partner Skills or dead).

While all Distortion Skill Duos are unique, they do share a lot of properties; they all do 2000 damage normally, 2500 damage during Cross Combo, and have 100% minimum damage.

Throws are a key part of your offense to stop opponents who simply block and refuse to do anything else! Press + while on the ground to perform a forward throw or + while on the ground to perform a back throw. If you are far away from the opponent, then your character will run forward a bit before executing a throw.

Normal throws also play a part in overcoming Reject Guard - they are immune to the pushback effect, and Reject Guard leaves the defender in Throw Reject Miss state, meaning they can not break any throw if they stand still after Reject Guarding.

※1: Actions performed by a character in Resonance Blaze that would freeze the in-game timer outside of Resonance Blaze, such as Distortion Skills, Astral Heats and the follow-up sequence on a successful ground hit Clash Assault, also freeze that character's individual Resonance Blaze timer until said character has fully recovered from the action.

Resonance Blaze level also determines the rate of Skill Gauge gain, the rate of red health regeneration and how much chip damage attacks deal.

During Level 4 Resonance Blaze, reaching the maximum of 9 Skill Gauges when your opponent is down to one character will cause the Skill Gauge to glow gold. At this point, pressing + will activate your character's Astral Heat. Successfully landing an Astral Heat will result in an Astral Finish, winning the match for you automatically regardless of the opponent's remaining health.

Astral Heats are very easy to combo into; hit the opponent with a a Skill Attack, then cancel into Astral.